


old bones

by MercuryPoisoning



Category: Love Live! Sunshine!!
Genre: Angst, F/F, Hurt No Comfort, Kanan is just sad, Kanan-centric, KananMari if you squint, School Idols (Love Live!), Why Did I Write This?, aqours - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-30
Updated: 2020-12-30
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:09:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28430688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercuryPoisoning/pseuds/MercuryPoisoning
Summary: Kanan can't come to terms with the past.
Kudos: 6





	old bones

Late nights are always the worst.  
  
Late nights, Kanan can feel shreds and fingers of the past all around her. They creep up her walls and tangle with her bedsheets. They pin down her ankles and strangle her throat and she wants to scream but she can't, she can't, she can't.  
  
Late nights are always the worst, but Kanan rides them out, and when the sun floods its light over the bay in Uchiura she watches its advance and reminds herself that this happens every day. Every day the sun comes up. Every day the tide comes in. Every day the Earth breathes and turns and Kanan does too, as pointless as it may seem.  
  
She tells herself these things and sometimes, on a good day, she believes them.  
  
So the sun rises and Kanan has things to do, and she goes about doing them on a few cups of coffee and whatever resolve she can drag up inside. She drifts through class. She auto-pilots through practice. She spouts overdone banter with Chika and the girls and justifies her eyebags with a recent assignment. And then after practice she's gathering her things and the rooftop empties but Mari is still there, and Mari is the both the last and only person Kanan wants to see. She can't meet Mari's eyes.  
  
"What's wrong?" Mari asks, because she knows, she always knows. Kanan knows she knows, but that doesn't call for the truth.  
  
"Nothing," she says, "I'm just tired. Late night." It's partially true. Kanan hates the way lies just spring to her lips, hates how easy it is now, _hates_ it.  
  
"Kanan," Mari whispers. "Please don't hide things from me. You don't have to be strong all the time."  
  
As easy as it is for Kanan to lie it's just as easy for Mari to bare the truth, to speak honestly and without forebear. Mari only knows how to feel everything and Kanan doesn't know how to feel very much of anything, anymore. It's incomprehensible to her that they could ever connect now. Not the way they did before. Not after everything. And it's this train of thought that haunts her at night, so she puts it away for now. She turns to Mari. She meets her gaze.  
  
"Kanan," Mari pleads softly. "Tell me."  
  
Something about the raw sadness in her voice tears at Kanan's chest, and suddenly she is crying. So suddenly she doesn't have a moment to suppress it. So suddenly it's like a wave and it takes over her composure.  
  
Mari runs to her, takes her by the shoulders and pulls her in, and Mari smells like sweat and spring flowers and wind. Kanan cries. She cries an ocean. It rushes down over her and she wriggles free from Mari's arms and makes a beeline for the door.  
  
From behind, a shout of indignation, and Mari literally pounces on her. The force of it takes them both to the ground. It knocks all breath and tears from Kanan's body. She stares at Mari, at her flushed cheeks, her ruffled hair, her wild eyes. She stares at Mari and feels her world tilt and sway. Like a ship in the bay.  
  
"Oops," Mari breathes.  
  
Kanan doesn't have the words to respond. She gathers herself together, sits up. Mari scoots forward and cups Kanan's face in her hands.  
  
"I'm sorry," Kanan whispers, shutting her eyes against Mari's glow, and she means it for everything. Everything she's ever done to hurt Mari and everything she still, undoubtedly, has yet to do.  
  
"It's okay," Mari rasps. "It's okay, Kanan. It's okay."  
  
But Kanan can only shake her head, because it hasn't been _okay_ in so very long. Guilt is like slow fire. It eats everything up until nothing is left and when nothing is left, it eats nothing too. And Kanan can't verbalize this to Mari. Instead she maintains her silence until it gets too heavy and then she scrambles to her feet and goes through the door, and Mari is left on the rooftop under the blaze of an afternoon sun and the quiet smog of Kanan's poisonous regret.  
  
Late nights are always the worst, but at least if she gets through them, she has another day to try to make everything better. To rebuild what she ruined. So she goes to school and she goes to practice and she exchanges overdone banter with Chika and the girls and she works hard. For Aqours, yes. But mostly for Mari.

Late nights are always the worst, and Kanan leaves her heart in the past when she takes her feet out of bed to move into the future.

**Author's Note:**

> All I do is make lesbians cry. It's all I do


End file.
